Product Description
The New York Times bestselling author returns to science fiction with an eerie, transcendent novel of the near future. Errol’s father has been dead for several years. Yet lately Errol has been awakened in the middle of the night by a caller claiming to be his father. Is it a prank, or a message from the grave? When he hears the unmistakable sound of a handset being put down on a table, he decides to investigate. Curious and not a little unnerved, Errol sneak… More >>
#1 by Luan Gaines on July 2, 2010 - 5:29 pm
When Errol Porter is woken by night after night of strange phone calls, he has no idea how much his life will change. At first the calls are unnerving, a voice bemoaning, “Cold…naked, cold… naked.” Night after night the calls come, in the waning hours of the morning. His divorce imminent, Porter is still recovering from that emotional trauma, his well-paying computer job a thing of the past, along with his broken marriage. Currently, Errol is working at Mud Brothers Pottery Studio and living in a garage-cum-living space. The only light on the horizon is a burgeoning romance with Nella, a lively Caribbean ceramicist at the studio, who inspires Errol to look beyond the painful past year with an eye to the future.
The calls are increasingly unsettling to Errol, especially as the voice becomes more familiar, eventually claiming to be Porter’s father, dead for the past six years. When the voice calls him Airy, a childhood name, Errol is hooked, unable to resist rushing to the cemetery where his father is buried. Once at the graveyard, Errol discovers a stranger who is not a stranger, a man who will challenge every assumption Porter has known, thrusting him into a surreal world where the impossible is increasingly viable. The stranger draws others into Porter’s life, implacable men on a mission that is both stunning and brutally efficient. His simple existence no longer relevant, another dimension offers an amazing possibility, along with a frightening pursuit by those who fear what they cannot control.
Drawing on an imaginative premise, this supernatural story transcends the acceptable boundaries of reality, fascinating and thought-provoking, a call to look beyond out petty daily concerns and question the rigid, frightened society we have wrought. Crossing the line between the known and the unknown, The Wave is a parable for our times, informed by a deep concern for the direction of humankind driven by a fear of difference and a shocking disregard for individual rights. At the heart of Errol’s quest to unravel a world far beyond his ken lies his capacity to transcend the ordinary, thrust into a future of infinite potential. Luan Gaines/ 2006.
Rating: 4 / 5
#2 by Louis N. Gruber on July 2, 2010 - 7:07 pm
Things are not going well for Errol Porter, but then he starts getting those strange incoherent phone calls in the middle of the night. Someone addressing him by his childhood pet name, “Airy.” Someone who claims to be his (long deceased) father. Then it gets even stranger. Errol goes to the cemetery and finds a naked, incoherent young man who claims to BE his dead father. And knows all kinds of things about him and his family that only his late father could possibly know.
So, has the late Mr. Porter been raised from the dead? Nothing as simple as that. No, indeed. Mr. Porter’s DNA and his memories have somehow been incorporated into something called “The Wave,” a life-form that goes way beyond anything we know. A life-form that brings everything into mystical unity, and–well–I can’t explain it. You’ll just have to read the book.
If the first half of the novel builds upon familiar elements of Mosleyana–home, family, sex, race–the second half soars into another dimension–stocked with alien life forms and paranoid government agencies, and builds to an unbelievable conclusion.
Author Walter Mosley is a literary genius, and I consider myself a fan, but this is not his best work. The plot doesn’t hold together well enough to ever be believable. Who or what–really–is G.T.–the young man who claims to be Errol’s father? The book explains all that–but not really. Not in a way that’s convincing. Still, it does read easily, flows like music, with overtones of love, betrayal, loss, sadness, and–of course–sex.
If you love Mosley’s work, you’ll love this one. If you’re not familiar with him, this is probably not the book for you to start with. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.
Rating: 4 / 5
#3 by Harriet Klausner on July 2, 2010 - 9:40 pm
Unemployed system administrator Errol Porter thinks nothing of the calls except for the inconvenience as they wake him up every night. He assumes someone is pranking him with the insistence that the caller is his father. Errol’s dad died in 1996. As the calls keep coming, Errol begins to wonder if he might be a bit deranged as the person on the other end is beginning to speak and sound just like his father and more frightening the man knows insider information that only he and his father Arthur Bontemps Porter III could know.
Unable to resist Errol agrees to meet Arthur, but is stunned when he sees his dad’s face, albeit a much younger Arthur than he remembers. He wonders if GT (”Good Times”) is a con, but has no idea what the person would benefit from this ruse or could he be a ghost? US Army officer Dr. David Wheeler places Errol under house arrest until he can figure out how to persuade his superiors that we have been invaded by “demons from hell” and how to combat them. While David expects the invasion of the body snatchers, Errol trusts no one especially the Feds or his so-called dad, but admits while he ponders what next as the sex with David’s wife is good.
As he did with FUTURELAND, Walter Mosley displays his vast skills with this superb science fiction thriller. The story line focuses mostly on Errol who keeps digging one step at a time only to find that next stride even more convoluted and confusing. Like the hero, readers will wonder what is going on until suddenly the 200 plus page novel is finished in one delightful sitting. Sci Fi fans will see why mystery readers find it easy to give THE WAVE to the great Walter Mosley.
Harriet Klausner
Rating: 5 / 5
#4 by Duncan Thomson on July 2, 2010 - 10:45 pm
Mosley fans will find much to like in the character development of a black out-of-work computer programmer turned potter, and the wierd turns his life takes when a young man claiming to be his reincarnated father appears. Science fiction afficionados, on the other hand, may be disappointed in the development of the science fiction ideas, which are a strange blend of “B” sci-fi movie and mysticism. The science fiction revolves around the idea that an intelligent life-form, developing within the earth since it was driven deep below the surface by a meteorite impact billions of years ago, has emerged to the surface and is making contact with humanity in a most bizarre and interesting way. So far, so good. But unfortunately the great science fiction that I found myself expecting to emerge from this idea fails to materialize. Instead, the story gets bogged down in mad scientist paranoia and mystical revelations of an approaching god-like being from across the galaxy – somehow drawn to mate with the new life-form from within the earth. The mysticism reminds me of Mosley’s earlier science fiction attempt, Blue Light, and makes me wonder if there’s some underlying story or message there that Mosley is still struggling to figure out how to tell. Definitely worth a read by Mosley fans such as myself, and even worth a read for non-Mosley fans for the “teasers” of science fiction ideas contained within the story, even if those ideas never get fully developed.
Rating: 4 / 5
#5 by Mayra Calvani on July 2, 2010 - 11:47 pm
`”… naked, naked… I don’t have any clothes… so so cold…”‘
With this intriguing line starts New York Times bestselling author Walter Mosley’s latest novel. Don’t be fooled by its short length and light writing, however, because this is one of those works highly allegorical and filled with deeply hidden themes.
The story beings when Errol Porter, a computer programmer turned potter, receives a creepy phone call from a strange man speaking in single words. The stranger’s voice is pleading, desperate and crazed. A few days later the man calls again. This time his language is more developed and he claims to be Errol’s father. There’s just one problem: Errol’s father is in the grave, dead for many years. But if the stranger is not his father, then who is he, and why does his voice sound so similar and he seems to know so many secret things about Errol and his family, things only his father could have known?
Errol goes to his father’s grave and meets the stranger, and from that moment on his life is turned upside down. The stranger–or GT–is the identical, much younger version of his father. It doesn’t make sense, but Errol’s desire to believe that somehow his father has come back to him is too strong. He soon realizes this `creature’ is, in a way, his father, yet at the same time a much more disturbing and wondrous being whom the American government is frantically after. Errol tries to help GT and in the process finds himself captured by the secret authorities. While captive he’s shocked with one stunning revelation after another about the identity of GT and others like him, and witnesses acts of unspeakable ignorance, fear and evil by his own people.
The Wave is an interesting read, to say the least. It brings up many questions to mind: Can innocence and survival be evil? Who is more evil–the creature who acts on evolution and survival or the man who, driven by fear, commits acts of unspeakable atrocity? Does the end justify the means? The book can be read in a day or two yet haunts the reader with these questions for many days afterwards. The only disappointing element in the novel is the villain. The story is so well written I was surprised to find such a cliché, cartoon-like presentation of the “mad” government scientist from such an accomplished author. In spite of this, however, the novel is worth reading for all the moral questions it raises.
Rating: 4 / 5